Analysis.
Music historians still can't agree on the origin of Baroque music. Ones say it comes from the Italian Barocco, the others assert that it's from the Portuguese Barocco. However, both sides agree in opinion that Baroque music directly preceded the birth of 'serious' Classical music. Sarah Pillow and her famous cohort (all four of the current Brand X members) were the first of our contemporaries to introduce the Prog listener to early Baroque music by uniting it with Progressive Rock, which has become their revolutionary "Nuove Musiche" album from 2000. It was really wise of them to do the next step with such a perfectly constructed ProGduction as "Remixes". The point is that unlike its predecessor, this double CD album of completely new material features not only modern interpretations of songs from that era, but also those sounding like the originals, which will certainly serve as a necessary bridge for those who liked "Nuove Musiche", but could not completely get into it, as well as those still on their way to comprehend what is now known as an academic music of the two branches, Classical and Avant-garde. While the essence of the advanced form of Baroque music lies in the contrast between parts of many different instruments, which makes it difficult for a quick comprehending, the aesthetics of its early manifestations usually suggested the presence of only one or two instruments in the show and one singer, the compositions being destined mainly for a Church. So it doesn't seem to be accidental that the first disc was recorded in the "St. John in the Village" church in NYC. The tracks included are the works of the very first Baroque music proponents, among which English composer Henry Purcell was probably the most prolific, although he died only at 36. For those still not in the know, Mrs. Pillow is a classically trained musician, possessing a voice of a heavenly beauty and covering a wide variety of vocal styles, from jazz to opera, the latter being the essential part of the music on Disc 1. Are you ready for Church or, rather, Gothic romances? Here they are, with elements of opera. Most of the songs feature Sarah's singing going to the accompaniment of only one instrument, which is either the lute, as on Flow My Tears, To Pansies, As Life What Is So Sweet, Ode du Premier Jour de Mai, To Lilies and To Dewes, or the harpsichord, as on the opening track and the next to last. Imagine Mood for a Day from Yes's "Fragile" developing alongside dramatic female vocals having its own, independent storyline, and you are more or less close to the idea of what you can expect from these tracks, particularly those with lute. If classical-like guitar pieces are your cup of tea, you will definitely fall in love with these, and inasmuch as the more complicated compositions are placed in the middle of the CD, you'll have time to prepare yourself for them. The culmination is yet to come. Star of Sirius's part II from Steve Hackett's "Voyage of the Acolyte", with Sally Oldfield on vocals, can be used as a distant point of comparison with regard to the other songs: Il Romeo, Aura Soave, Audite Me and Laetamini in Domino, each featuring two instruments: the rare Viola Da Gamba, whose sound is pretty low and is closer to cello, and either harpsichord or organ, and O Let Me Weep, the only track performed with three instruments (plus violin). These show some certain departure from the romance formula towards a confluence of quasi-classical music and opera (one-man opera, to be precise), with the typically operatic rises and falls of vocal lines and the timbre plays. Disc I is an amazing acoustic journey to the distant past of European classical music, which may leave cold only those exclusively into pop and the like primitive genres.